Day 44: Villeneuve sur Lot to Agen

October 9, 2023

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We misunderstood the description of the 9.50 euro breakfast at the Platane Hotel, and ended with just the basic baguette, mini croissants, and apple sauce type affair. The basic French one jammer. We gobbled up almost all the croissants, and looked over at the one other guest the hotel seemed to have, for signs of privation. But no, he must have been a native, because he was happiy dipping his little piece of toast in his coffee, and seemed content. For 9.50? Go figure.

We still liked the hotel a lot, especially the ease of getting our bikes out and of bringing our bags to them. Quickly, we were down the street and around the corner. That brought us onto a fairly large commercial street, with a nice tabac. That where Dodie went in for some postcards. The one I liked showed towns between here and Agen, labelling them the Prune Circuit. Like this:

You would have to blow the picture up to see the various towns listed well, but of them only Villeneuve and Agen were on our route, since we are single mindedly forging our way south.

To start out, we passed south out of town, going through the Porte de Pujols. Pujols is touted as a medieval town of great beauty, listed among the "Most Beautiful Towns of France".

Some doubts began to set in as we looked ahead and seemed to see Pujols up on a hill.

That must be the fun medieval stuff, up there!

We see Le Haut in the name - bad sign, but hell we'll go for it.

They must have put this sign for Kathleen.

The climb to Pujols did not seem too bad, although when we came back down it did look awfully steep.

The view to the valley from the Pujols North Gate.

The telephoto on the camera was able to look back down to Villeneuve.

The gothic Pujols St Nicolas church, from about 1547.

Inside the church, it was suitably dark and subdued.

The church did have a St Jacques stamp. Technically we are on our way to Santiago Compostella, and could be trying to collect a stamp in each church along the way. But for now we are just happy with this one in our notebook.

Yeah, but we will take a much longer way!

One the other (south) side of town there was a viewpoint, with the various sights annotated. To me, there was not much to see. But for example, with the 1271 St Etienne church, way down there, the sign mentioned that the sparse population required putting up lots of churches in the middle of nowhere.

The isolated church, far below. Note the birds in flight!

One more street. We only saw two young men and one old lady up here.

The next stage of the day was also lots of fun, as we got to see many cows, which we have agreed are not "caramel" cows now but "cafe au lait" cows.

But the main points of interest were orchards - of plum, walnut, and hazelnut.,

There was also this tree stuck in there - I think it was a persimmon.

Things were going along nicely, as we continued to follow the track that we got from ... somewhere. And when the road began to rise, we were game, still fresh from a good night's sleep and breakfast. The rise became such that even I could not push the pedals, with lowest gear and full assist, so fine, we walked.

At what seemed to be the top, this cat and I waited for Dodie to catch up.

Dodie caught up and we proceeded up, until the road did this, still climbing into the mountain.

That's where Dodie wisely balked, and back down we went.

We had to go all the way back to Pujols, to get onto some kind of road that would be cyclable. We found that, and carried on, except that like the frogs in the heating water, we gradually realized that the up and downing of the road was not just a temporary thing, but the order of the day. There was the style of hill I hate, the one that curves up and away, and when you get to the top of the upward curve, it curves up and away again! We climbed almost 1000m today, which is getting into the range (1200) that we thought was darn tough in Portugal in the Spring.

I think we learned a new French word today: "pech" is a hilltop.

The hills were sort of ok, until we drew to within maybe 15 km of Agen. Now the roads were no wider, but the traffic volume increased dramatically. We tried to choose the best way in, but it seemed there was no really good way. One driver pulled alongside and told us he thought it was too dangerous here. We were stopped then, trying to spot another way on the GPS. But stopped or riding, it was not the place to be.

When we finally got off the "highway" and on to the first city street, it was again not safe. We just pushed along the sidewalk.

Not safe, Agen, where is your bike lane?

We did finally find a marked way for bikes to downtown, but it still was not great.

Once we were truly downtown, we were sufficiently frazzled that the city did not look very appealing. I was saying "I don't see anything worth a photo" and Dodie said "Just snap what you see". The next three shots are what I saw.

We found our hotel, which had been chosen specially to be downtown, and got a good welcome from the desk clerk, though we were a little early. A shower helped a lot, and we sallied back out to look at the town again. It did have a nice large car free shopping area, and many interesting and decorative buildings. This time I was trying to shoot for interesting and decorative, and this is what I got. Any different?

We did not like the climbing or the getting frazzled at the end of today, and so would not recommend or repeat the route we did. Better to go by Bordeaux, no doubt. But for tomorrow, and looking toward Toulouse, we see lots of bikeways. We hope that works out. Also to show we don't learn, we are springing for another 10 euro breakfast for tomorrow. We asked at the desk and the lady said the magic word "bacon"!

Today's ride: 49 km (30 miles)
Total: 2,295 km (1,425 miles)

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